Adaptation of the Z-cone model to the estimation of the energy of a bcc foam

Abstract

The Z-cone model, which provides an analytic approach to the estimation of the energy of a foam for simple crystal structures, has been adapted to the important case of the body-centred cubic foam. This involves defining two types of cones, corresponding to the two sets of neighbouring bubbles that come into contact. We obtain results which compare favourably with accurate computations using the Surface Evolver. The precise dependence of energy on liquid fraction close to the loss of the contacts remains to be resolved.

Keywords:

• foams
• soft matter
• emulsions

Acknowledgements

We thank M. Tierney for some initial cone model calculations as part of his undergraduate project.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under [grant number 13/IA/1926]. We also acknowledge the support of the MPNS COST Actions MP1106 ‘Smart and green interfaces’ and MP1305 ‘Flowing matter’ and the European Space Agency [AO-09-943, AO-99-108, AO-09-813].